Exploring the history of Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, founder of the New Orleans Tribune

The Common Wind’s Creole Visionary: Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez

by Caryn Cossé Bell

In September 1862, with Civil War New Orleans occupied by the U.S. Army, Louis Charles Roudanez, his brother Jean Baptiste Roudanez, and a small group of wealthy allies launched L’ Union, the first African American newspaper in the Southern states (Foner 63). On the front page of the French-language bi-weekly’s premier issue, the paper published two letters “in full and word for word” as they considered it “a sacrilege to lay thereupon our profane hand” (Brickhouse 1107).